Hanging By A Moment
by stepinsideme
Summary: A one shot written about two characters from my RP group, both originals, one is mine and one is my RP partner.


**Drabble for original characters that me and my rp partner write. Millie is mine, Caspar is Liam's. Yup.**

* * *

><p>Millie sat at the edge of the black lake, looking over the water. There was no wind in the air today, nothing to stir the mirror like surface that stretched out in front of her. If she leaned forward slightly, she could see her reflection staring clearly back at her. Her hair blended into the water, her pale skin slightly ghostly as she watched slight ripples form from some sort of water creature disrupting the surface. She looked incredibly ordinary, sitting there on the banks and hugging her knees. Anyone who didn't know Millie might think she was depressed, sitting there by herself as she was. In fact, she just liked to be alone sometimes. In the winter, it was more difficult for her. However now that the nights were getting lighter and the air was warming up, Millie was able to spend hours in the grounds again. Being inside of the castle made her feel closed in, even though the castle was hardly small. She needed the open space of being outside. Going to cities didn't suit Millie and it never had. She'd been to London a few times with her mum and hated almost every moment of it. Diagon Alley was too magical and distracting for her to feel claustrophobic, but the roaring of cars and constant chatter of people in London made Millie's head hurt.<p>

Millie rolled to lay on her front and tied her hair back to stop it falling into the water. She'd left her bag inside, including her camera. Tonight wasn't about taking photos, it was about thinking, and she had a lot to think about. So much had happened since she'd returned to Hogwarts, after all. The letter from her mum, saying that her dad was coming home in the summer for good, still sat on her bedside table. She looked at it before she went to sleep some nights, reminding herself that it wasn't a dream. Her dad was coming home and he'd be there for her last summer before she graduated Hogwarts. He'd be in England for her graduation. She could introduce him to Caspar, to Jessie, to Mary, to everyone.. Letters to him over the years couldn't capture the real magic of Hogwarts, she wanted him to see it for himself, before she left.

Also, she wanted to see her mum smile again. Their relationship was mending slowly, but no one made her mum smile like her dad. Millie had never understood how someone could smile differently for different people until she'd met Caspar. She was pretty certain the way she smiled around him was just for him; the kind of smile that told him that she was falling for him, that she craved every little touch, that she missed him when he wasn't there.. Millie wanted to unravel herself until she was nothing but soul and then give herself to him. All of the casings didn't matter. She knew now, even after knowing him for not even two months, that she wanted to give him everything. People might say it was cliché, naïve or stupid, but Millie had never been the sort of girl to care. Happiness had been a word too easily used before him. Being with him wasn't like flying, or falling, or any of the other words that might come to mind. It was like being weightless. Like all of the things that tied her down disappeared: her insecurities and her worries, her connections to reality and to fantasy... None of it mattered. All that mattered was the fact that he was there and he was hers.

Millie shook her head, trying to clear it as she stared into the water again. Was that what she'd come out here to think about? Caspar? There were other things to think about. She had exams, the war outside was getting closer and closer, Quidditch season was getting more and more tense.. But at the edge of each of those thoughts, there he was. Exams? She knew better than to think that Cas wouldn't offer to help her. Millie told herself there and then that she couldn't let him. He had N.E. to focus on. The war outside… The Caspar inside her head wrapped his arms around her and tucked her into his chest, protecting her. He'd done it against Malfoy, hadn't he? Gone in and told Malfoy where to go… With Quidditch, he wasn't much help admittedly, but he still hovered on the edge of her thoughts.

"Get a grip, Mils." She muttered to herself, picking a daisy out of the grass and laying the flower on the water, watching it float. Even now, laying in the quiet and thinking, she couldn't work out how Caspar had gotten so ingrained into her life so quickly. There was a voice nagging in the back of her mind that she wasn't ready to listen to yet. She'd never been in a relationship like this before, never wanted someone like this, never felt anything near this way… So for now those feelings had to be addressed before the voice in the back of her head got to add another one to the pile.

Her conversation with Mary came back to her. It had been one of the most awkward conversations she'd ever had, easily. Her painted nails touched the surface of the lake as she thought back over it. Yes, it seemed quite clear that Cas knew what he was doing, but he hadn't minded the fact that Millie was kind of guessing as she went along. She could remember the heat of his hands on her skin vividly enough to make her blush, sat there by herself. Her mind replayed the kisses and touches, each little sound Cas had made, the way he'd reacted to her… "Millie, stop." She murmured to herself, trying to force her mind down a different path. Millie had spent quite a bit of time relieving the scene in the classroom in her head as it was.

"Mils?" A voice came from her left, making her head turn. Speak of the devil and he shall appear; Cas was crossing the grass towards her. How did he know to find her hear? Don't be daft, Mils, he knows more about you than you realise, her mind chimed in. He was further inside of her head than she'd like to admit.

"You've found my thinking spot." She said in way of greeting and offered him a smile as he sat next to where she lay on the ground. "How did you know I was out here?"

Caspar shrugged. "You weren't in the library, so I took an educated guess."

Raising her eyebrows, she asked, "How did you guess I was out here instead of in Gryffindor Tower?"

"Because it's warm enough to be outside and you don't like being stuck inside the castle too much."

Well, he'd got her there.

Pushing herself to sit up, Millie dropped her head onto Caspar's shoulder, leaning into his side. Her body relaxed as his arm came up around her shoulders, hugging her into him. "What were you thinking about?"

Not sure she wanted to confess what was on her mind, she poked his leg. "You know me, work it out."

His fingers started trailing through her hair. It was a weakness of hers. Millie shut her eyes and let herself enjoy the sensation, listening to the quiet of their breathing for a while. "I don't think I know you quite well enough to know what goes on inside of your head all of the time, Mils." Cas spoke after a while, his voice soft against her hair. He kissed the top of her head.

"You're probably not far off." Millie murmured, tucking into his body more. She trusted him entirely with herself, something she'd never done before, let alone with a guy. Yet letting herself relax so completely didn't make her feel vulnerable. There was no urge to put up all of the barriers and acts she'd always had. In fact, since meeting him she'd let a lot of them down just generally. How many people had she grown closer to recently? She'd always been so careful in not letting people know her, not letting people see her emotions, that she'd missed out on a few friendships. Millie had more insecurities than she'd probably ever tell people, but Cas had helped her through them without realising. He'd appeared when she was reshuffling everything about herself, forming a new kind of Millie, and he'd liked her just fine. It'd given her the confidence to let everyone else see her just as she was.

"You disappeared inside your head again, Mils." Cas brought her back from where her thoughts had taken her. She turned her head and opened her eyes, taking in his face. If someone like him, who was quite obviously a lot smarter and worldly than her, could like her, then something had to be going right. Instead of waiting for her to answer, he pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. Millie gave him another before resting her head back on his shoulder, smiling. "It's odd, you being so quiet."

"There's a lot going on in my head right now." Millie replied, finding his hand and exploring the creases of his palm with her fingertips. "And I'm not good at thinking, so it takes me a while."

Cas wrapped his fingers around Millie's, trapping them. "Talking about them might help."

In truth, talking to Mary about her worries had helped. Yet.. Could she really tell anyone about how her feelings were developing for Caspar? She moved again, shifting so that her legs lay across his legs. The heat of his hand coming to rest on her calf briefly interrupted her thoughts, before the subtle beating of his pulse under his skin brought her back into focus.

"There's this boy.." She began, a little smile on her lips, hidden from Cas. "And he makes me feel all of these things that are all so new to me. I've just been trying to find words for them all, to try and understand them better."

Caspar's fingers gently urged Millie to tilt her head up, which she did and was met with another kiss. "You're a nutter, Mils." He murmured. "It's kind of cute."

After giving him a kiss in exchange, Millie tugged at his hair playfully. "I'm not cute." The sun had sunk mostly below the horizon by this point, chilling the grounds. "But I am cold, can we go inside?"

"You just want an excuse to change topic."

Mille laughed and climbed to her feet. "So what if I do?" She held her hands out to Cas to take, who did so.

"It's cute." Caspar's smirk made Millie roll her eyes.

"Now you're just trying to get a reaction. C'mon." She tugged his hands, resisting the urge to pull him in for kisses, and led them both back up inside the castle.


End file.
